Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#353 in the Series) is the self-tiled debut from Clocks.

If you’ve read some of my previous write-ups you may have read some referring to my summer in Kansas City in 1983. That’s where I saw REM on the Murmur tour and also Split Enz on the Time and Tidetour. You should check out those write-ups, they have some great stories in them. (The REM piece is one of my favorites.)

While there I had a friend named Barbara that lived in Paola, Kansas. She kept telling me about this great band called the Clocks that called “somewhat” nearby Wichita home. She gave me a tape and yeah, I liked what I heard! They had the 80s sound down! Another great power-pop band for my cassette case!

Shortly thereafter We made the trip from Kansas City to Lawrence, Kansas to catch them live. They put on a great show, very entertaining. I was a fan.

Their album was produced by Mike Flicker of Heart fame. It did well with the MTV crowd at that time. I did a little looking and found an article about them from “AOR Classics” magazine. It featured an interview with lead vocalist, bassist Jerry Sumner. Jerry wrote about what the Clocks career and especially their hit single, “She Looks a Lot Like You.”

Jerry writes: “She Looks a Lot Like You” was written by our drummer Steve Swain in a hotel room in Selkirk, Manitoba in Canada. We spent a lot of time up there when we first started playing original music. The Canadians were very receptive to new music.

“Anyway, Steve saw some model on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine and thought she looked like his ex-wife, as well as the girl he was seeing at the time. The first time I heard the song, I thought we might have a chance to do something as a band. That is, if we could just keep coming up with songs like that. The song did get us a record deal with CBS-Boulevard Records. Steve did manage to come up with quite a few additional songs for the album. We actually had a good chance of getting somewhere in the music business.

“Our album was released in June of 1982. It ended up charting, as did the single. We toured with Rick Springfield and Cheap Trick, so things were definitely looking up for us… until when things abruptly changed at the label and our second album wasn’t picked up. It seems that was the beginning of some big changes in the music industry. MTV came on the scene and suddenly there was a whole new way of doing things.”

This album never officially made it onto Compact Disc. I did find a site where you can download it. I’m guessing it’s from the vinyl version. If you’re a fan of 80s power pop I recommend this album.

Be sure to check out some of the songs in the playlist below. As mentioned earlier, “She Look a Lot Like You” was the single that got the most play. My personal favorite was “Someone (Not Me)” which featured some great guitar work by Lance Threet.